The present teachings generally relate to the field of providing stimulation of central nervous system tissue, muscles, nerves, or combinations thereof, and more particularly to a system and method for improving neural or neuromuscular communication impairment through multi-point stimulation.
The nervous system comprises the central and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system is composed of the brain and the spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system consists of all of the other neural elements, namely the nerves and ganglia outside of the brain and spinal cord.
Damage to the nervous system may result from a traumatic injury, such as penetrating trauma or blunt trauma, or a disease or disorder including, but not limited to birth defects, cerebral palsy, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), diabetic neuropathy, senile dementia, stroke and ischemia.
After spinal cord injury (SCI), spared regions of the central nervous system are spontaneously capable of repairing the damaged pathway, although the process is very limited. Moreover, despite the many promising treatment strategies to improve connections across the damaged spinal cord, the strength of connectivity and functional recovery of the impaired spinal cord are still unsatisfactory.
Electrical stimulation of the central and peripheral nervous systems improves neuronal connectivity, and can be employed to improve functional recovery after neuronal injury. It is an effective method that promotes reactive sprouting through which an increase in the number of functional connections may be possible. Electrical stimulation can also improve functional connections by strengthening the weak existing synapses and/or by promoting synaptogenesis. One of the emerging concepts is that the nervous system contains latent pathways that can be awakened by electrical stimulation or pharmacological manipulation.
The majority of the methods employing electrical stimulation utilize single or dual point paradigm in which unipolar or bipolar stimuli are delivered at points of the challenged neural pathway. The effectiveness of this stimulation depends on active propagation of an action potential.
There is a great desire to improve the effectiveness of electrical stimulation in order to more successfully treat or even reverse neuromotor dysfunctions. Treatment systems can be very complex. There is a need for apparatus that reduces risks while also meeting the need for treatment system that is simpler to operate that still safely improves motor control and function.